Fake drawings this week, but for-real poems. Some of those poems will come from the anthology for this week, This Same Sky - A Collection of Poems from Around the World, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye.

Born a Palestinian Christian and raised in Jerusalem, Nye is a San Antonio poet who travels the world in support of poetry. In the introduction to the anthology she laments the fact that though people from all around the world follow American poets, while Americans rarely read their own country's poetry and that those who do, even more rarely read poet from outside their own borders. There is a world of great poetry out there, says Nye, and she has worked, not with just this book, but for many years to bring that poetry to us.

For myself, I think my offerings this week are all new poems written as part of my poem-a-day process. Using mostly old poems (all but one) last week, gave me a chance to catch up and get a little ahead with new stuff.

Here's all the stuff, mine and everyone else's.

Me

change is my friend, they say

Muhammad al Maghut

Orphan

Yehuda Amichai

Wildpeace

Me

coming up short

Bernice Zamora

Bearded Lady

Derby

Pueblo Winter

State Street

Situation

Stearn Wharf

One More for Roberto

Me

the dark and empty left behind

Sunay Akin

Debt

Ramon Diaz Eterovich

Childhood is the Only Lasting Flower

Gu Cheng

Far and Close

Vijaya Mukhopadhayay

At the Ferry

Me

that which is

Ralph Angel

Cul-de-sac

Interior Landscapes

Between Murmur and Glare

Me

the dirty business of closure

Tommy Olofsson

Old Mountains Want to Turn to Sand

Yannis Ritsos

The Meaning of Simplicity

Me

so, I’m a second-life poet

Steve Healey

bless you

Me

we are the apocalypse

Kwang-kyu Kim

The Land of Mists

Christine M. Krishnasami

Untitled

Aline Pettersson

Cuernavaca

Peter van Toorn

Mountain Tambourine

Kevin Perryman

Improvisation (Eching)

Me

allour niggers are told

Diane Wakoski

Inside Out

My Trouble

Me

I know when the apocalypse comes

﻿By way of a warning - my "spellcheck" is not working, so I checked spelling this week the old fashioned way - myself. You should probably not be shocked if you run across occassional or more

spelling surprises.

I've decided that, at my age, I've had my full measure of excitement and change. Don't want no more, want to know what to do in the morning without going through a new instruction manual.

change is my friend, they say

I’m too old nowto believe them when they say thatchange is my friend, seentoo many change, have I,and too fewturned out friendly

instrumentsof mass destruction, those change-peopleare,trying to sugar-coatthe wreckage they leave behind,sifting through the bloody bones of the new way, they say, oh, look, how fat and healthy the rats are now, such good work we do,heroes in the kingdom of rat, rat-redeemers are we, bringingfull tummies and, oh yes, new opportunityfor all the little ratlings…

why can’t you just get on board they say, join all the happy rats in their moment ofjubilation,dance and sing with them,kiss the slobbery lipsand fuzz-bubble bellies of theirlittle bald-tail babies

it’s all a matterof proper perspective

be nice…

know your place...

bow to the inevitabilities of our change-friendly world...

maybe they’llleave food in a tiny cracked cupfor you and a crumblinglittle cornerto appreciateit in

My first two poets from This Same Sky come from opposite sides of the most persistent fence of our time, the divide between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

The first poem is by Syrian poet, Muhammad al-Maghut, translated by May Jayyusi and Naomi Shihab Nye. Born in 1934, al Maghut is self-educated and has written plays that are read throughout the Arab world.

The Orphan

Oh, the dream! The dream!

My strong gilded wagon

has collapsed,

its wheels have scattered like bgypsies.

One night I dreamt of spring

and when I awoke

flowers covered my pillow.

I dreant once of the sea.

In the morning my bed was rich

with shells and fins.

But when I dreamt of freedom

sears surrounded my neck

with morning's halo.

From now on you will not find me

at ports or among trains

but in public libraries

sleeping head down on the maps of the world

as the orphan sleeps on the pavement

where my lips will touch more than one river

and my tears stream from continent to continent.

The next poet is Israeli Yehuda Amichai, born in Germany in 1924. He died in 2000.

His poem was translated by Chana Bloch.

Wildpeace

Not that of a cease-fire,

let alone the vision of the wolf and the lamb,

but rather,

as in the heart after a great excitement you can only

talk aboutt the weariness.

I know that I know how

to kill, that's why I'm an adult.

and my son plays with a toy gun that knows

how to open and close its eyes and say Mama.

A peace

withoug the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares,

without words, without

the heavy thud of the ruber samp: I want it

gentle over us, like lazy white foam.

Aittle rest for the wounds -

who speaks of healing?

(And the orphans' outcry is passed from one generation

to the next, as in a rely race:

the baton never falls.)

I want it co come like wildflowers,

suddenly, because the field

needs it: wildpeace.

Unlike almost everything else in life, being a poem-a-day poet means any poetic sin last only one day and is forgivable, leaving you always another day and another chance to make it right, easeing, a bit, the discomfort with coming up short on any particular day.

coming up short

I would like to write some short littlepoems

but all I can come up with arepiles of short littlewords

I want a nestingof songbirds;find onlya cawof short-leggedcrows

Bernice Zamora was born and raised in Colorado, She holds a Ph.D. in english and American literatures from Stanford University. There are few biographical details on the web, but from what I found, the poet's influence stems primarily from ther work as an academic and as a mentor of new poetic talent, as well as her first book, Restless Serpents, published in 1976.

I have selected several poems from her second book, Releasing Serpents, published in 1994 by Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue of Tempe, Arizona.

Bearded Lady

I wanted to know about love

and was told to see the bearded lady.

As she stroked her treasure, she

told me of the melding wells of Julia,

Of the kissing stone shaped

like camels,

Of the hair like linen

found among the cloistered,

And she stroked, and stroked, and stroked

Derby

He whipped his horses

To an incalculable speed

Racing against the undertaker's

Empty hearse-carriage

Pueblo Winter

Sparrows in Pueblo perch on empty

elm branches cocking their heads

at each other or at each shadow

under the warming winter sun.

They watch each other watch

each other and seem, at times,

more passive than their shadows

under the warming winter sun

until a robin flights by to break

their bobbing trance. Another robin

joins the first. Both alight

on a chokeberry bush

scattering the flapping

sparrows to the pole lines above.

From the lines they watch

the robins on the cherry bush.

One robin picks at a drying cherry

while the silent other lays witness

to the act; so, too, the sparrows

under the warming sun.

State Street

It is morning

that cradles the

carriage of a

waning Mexican

and his black young bride;

opium and age

gauze his vision from

twisted legs and

fallen arches

of her stumped feet.

Tottering arm-in-arm

the mortal lovers move

toward Mitzey's Bar.

Situation

I accept your proposal

And it doesn't matter

That you are an undertaker.

Do you mind that I am

A midwife?

Stearn Wharf

Wind shifts.

Nearby, a child sneezes.

Sea gulls fly in place.

A lone man rows his boat back.

Waves move southerly

the motherly move,

warm in winter.

Lone man, like wary,

is uselesss to the moment's shifts.

The sun's sparkles, scattered,

blown clear for the pelican't glide.

Mororboats are quickly coming in port.

In the distance, mists are making

islands disappear.

One More Poem For Roberto

Reverently,

That is how he reproaches

us who are so long unloved.

As if he understood

Yet escaped love's

sacred, unrelenting need.

Like the sea's wind against

a solid tree uprooted,

he reassured saplings

That in the battle agains the wind,

the wind must com

to us.

From a couple of weeks ago, reflections on loss.

the dark and empty left behind

it’s very quiet

just a couple of us here,

the molecular biology student;the woman who tweets;the biker with the handlebar moustache who appearsto liveoff the back of his bike;the lady lawyer,the builder,the architect,and the novelistwho spend their hourtogether over coffee most mornings;the tall gay guy,does something with moviesI think;the three church-school teachers,who study together - pray togetherthree mornings a week;the paint salesman, drinkingcoffee, selling paintby cell-phone; my new friend the retired schoolteacher; the English professor at the community college down the street;the retired pilot, flew for fifty years,now does crossword puzzles;the lesbian, feminist, disabled vet, retired postal workerwho plays in politics and seems to find troublelike a moth finds, always, the hottest porch light

the morning regulars

drifting away,anticipating the soon-comingclosure - trying to find someplace elseto live their morning life

me too,except I’m hanging on to the end

it’s my nature,stubborn,first to lead the charge,last to run,always last outof the crumbling building,the one left to turn out the lights,to feel the dark and emptyleft behind

it’s my nature,a creature of hope,certain, always, that thingswill work out in the end,even though theyalmostnever do

always surprisedby the dark and emptyleft behind

Next, I have several short poems from the anthology.

The first poem is by Turkish poet Sunay Akin, translated by Yusuf Eradam.

Born in 1962, Akin has published two books of poetry and lives in Istanbul.

Debt

I used to drop my pocket money

into the rain grates by the road

taking them for piggy-banks -

that's why it's the sea

that owes me most

This poem is by Ramon Diaz Eterovic, translated by Teresa Rozo-Moorhouse.

Born in Chile in 1956, the poet is a member of the Society of Writers of Chile and is an editor and author of many books of poetry.

Childhood is the Only Lasting Flower

1

Childhood is the only lasting flower.

When I go to bed each night

I still keep an eye open to watch the cuckoo's departure.

2

The movie theater is empty.

I only sense shadows of Indians

sharpening their arrows for Saturday matainee.

3

I would have been many things when I grew up.

Today in old chests I search for pieces of bygone time.

Childhod is the only lasting flower.

Next, I have this poem by Gu Cheng of China.

Born in 1956, Gu is the youngest of the Misty Poets goup. He helped found the nonofficial literary journal Today in 1974 and currently lives in exile in New Zealand and Germany.

His poem was translated by Edward Morin.

Far and Close

You

Look a while at me,

Look a while at a cloud.

I feel

You are far away while looking at me,

So very close while looking at the cloud.

Also from the anthology, here is a little longer poem by Indian poet, Vijaya Mukhopadhayay, who did his own translation.

At the Ferry

They shall be here on day

You are in the western hemisphere

And you are in the far Couth

Who are waiting alone and wearied

In the wintry North?

Now there's only a vast expanse of sand -

Dark waters in the distance, the deserted jetty

And snakeskins lying upside down.

The moaning wind roams about pining for human touch

Turns round and goes back again and again.

And yet this will come about, this meeting, one day

They will collect in a big crowd

Or in smal grops of twos and threes,

Sure of themselves and silently

On a moonless night or under a full moon in total eclipse.

The mysterious ferry stays awake, waiting.

Lots of poetry groups around the city. I don't engage in any of them, for reasons given in the poem below.

carpenterswho hang out with othercarpenters over coffee in the morningimagine masterpieces of the builderstradebut buildsignificantly fewerhouses

the lesson is simple

to make a betterworldcarpentersshould hang out with poetsand poetsshould hang outwithcarpenters

builderseach in our wayof that which is ourlife’sbreadand butter,biscuits andgravy,steak and eggs,whateverit is that is that which isthat which weare

﻿

I have three poems now by Ralph Angel, taken from his book Twice Removed, published in 2001 by Sarabande Books.

Cul-de-sac

About as empty

as sunlight against the side of a house, an embankment

stripped of dust and graffiti.

The days are short. The shadows longer than those of summer.

In the bright

between, a man in a blue suit rakes leaves.

And a car sputters. Doves flop into trees. And old woman

puts a cigarette to her mouth, then

turns from the window.

Up the street, houses go pale. The hill is splashed with color -

brown

and sienna, burnt orange, grey -

the entire sky a wisp of barely blue. And in some room,

somewhere, a neighbor

plays her piano. Two squirrels

chase and chatter, rooftop to balcony, to wire.

Incredible, the silence,

this flurry of notes that reflects it.

Interior Landscapes

In the blink of an eye, a light rain.

Among the ten-thousand synapses, the sound of rain, but

delicately, the sound of leaves.

In the blink of an eye, a pure-cold air.

Were I swimming thre, how clearly I could see my hands and

everything they touch.

Among all shapes growing here and dying, a sweet

and earthy smell. The weight and feel spread thinly, my own

blue house below,

as if the port were sighing, the cliffs

hauled in from afar, a wave of rolling tiled roofs and lamp stain

splashed against the walls.

In the blink of an eye, now wonder.

In the blink of an eye, an empty room. The unreal paper.

The space I've cleared.

Between Murmur and Glare

Intense and

sudden brooding. Echoing. The ceiling

and the walls and the floor.

Between you and me

the furnitue

gives ground. The hills

ease. Horizons

thin to the thin skies ofthe sea.

As a boat

to the window.

As anxious birds that seem always

to be starving.

On death. And

living. We can talk about living

between

islands.

On paper. Pure

glare. The string lanterns

cutting into it.

Murmured on terraces. Laughter

in the square.

Like footsteps. Like tourists

steaming toward

evening.

Their shouts are words too.

Page after page of

dark water.

There is a process for everything. I've been through this particular process several times. Never found it easy.

the dirty business of closure

I’ve had some of my photoshanging on the walls,donatedseveral months ago as part of a fund drive

I’ve told staffthey’re welcome to takewhat they want from whatever’s left;I don’t want to takethem home -it’s time to get them out of the closet and hangingsomewhere…

the executionersfrom the church met hereyesterdayto inventoryand put a price to thefurniture, all of it donated,most of it old, some it very fine

I’ve put a hold on two chairs,fine wooden chairs,$10 each…

the realtor was here day before yesterday, measuringthe space, an older man in a fisherman’s hat with a hammerand a carpenter’s tape -

hanging the “for lease” signs…

staff and customersgather around tables, talk aboutwhat/where to next

I provide some employment advice to the resident minister/social worker

she will pray,also follow-up on some of mysuggestions…

everyone wants closureit’s said; everybodyneeds closure,not just here, not just these people, a universalneed for resolution, away to put the pastto rest

but what a dirtybusinessit is

Now, two more poets from This Same Sky.

The first poet is Tommy Olofsson.

Born in Sweden in 1950. Olofsson earns his living as a poet and literary critic. He lives in the countryside outside the ancient university town of Lund.

His poem was translated by Jean Pearson.

Old Mountains Want To Turn To Sand

I have my roots inside me,

a skein of red threads.

The stones have their roots inside them,

like fine little ferns.

Wrapped around their softness

the stones sleep hard.

For centuries they have rested

under the sun.

Old mountains

want to turn to sand.

They let themselves go

and open up to water.

After centuries of thirst!

Like language -

that great mountain broken up

by our tongues.

We turn language to sand,

immersing the tongue

in a running stream

that moves mountains.

The second poet is Yannis Ritsos.

A Greek, Ritsos was born in 1909 and is author of more than 115 books of poetry, translation, essays and dramatic works. He began painting, playing the piano, and writing poetry at the age of eight.

He died in 1990.

His poem was translated by Edmund Keeley.

The Meaning of Simplicity

I hid behind simple things so you'll find me,

if you don't find me, you'll find the things,

you'll touch what my hand has touched,

our hand-prints will merge.

The August moon glitters in the kitchen

like a tin-plated pot (it gets that way

because of what I'm saying to you),

it lights up the empty house and

the house's kneeling silence -

always the silence remains kneeling.

Every word is a doorway

to a meeting, one often cancelled,

and that's when a word is true:

when it insists on the meeting.

I don't take myself too seriously when it comes to the poetry biz, which is good, since no one else does either.

I wrote this last week.

so, I’m a second-lifepoet

so I’ma second-lifepoet...

one of those old fellaswho after several retirementsdiscover we have exhausted the patienceof the labor marketand, starting to feel like we’ve begunthe long slide into the dark, dry wellof irrelevancy,become partisans of the fading classwho seek to fight back against the indifferenceof the worldand our over-achievinggrandchildrenby growing a beardand writing poetry whichwe put into books hardlyanyone reads, just enough, barely, so thatour relatives can convince us to believethey believewe have finally made something of themselves,even though we know otherwise, thatwhen we’re not at the tablethere isa lot of discussion about what the hell is he up to now

but, that doesn’t discourage usbecause, you know,we’re not hurting anything,except the reputation of poetryamong those few paying anyattention,and it’s turns out that whateverits other merits,the whole poetry businessis a lot cheaperthan gardeningor playing the horses

Next, I have a poem by Steve Hearley, from his book, Earthling, published by Coffee House Press in 2004.

Hearley teaches writing to prisoners in several Minnesota Correctional Facilities and is associate editor of Conduit Magazine. Born in Washington D.C., he lives in Minneapolis.

bless you

I say this as the continents continue to drift,

driven by an obscure heat inside treh Earth.

I've not been to Antarctica but can tell you

it's the most misunderstood continent,

an apparent imperfection on the globe,

like the bellybutton on a naval orange.

All naval oranges come from one mutant tree

that was grafted with other trees and so on.

This is the difficult life of a seedless fruit,

rescued from obliviou and perpetuated

not by itself bu human hunger.

Empires are meant to expand,

blank calendars absorb the stream

of appointments, but who, if not you

or me can digest that spongy climate,

ad when dusk officially exists,

when each thing becomes a fraction of itself,

who can make up the difference?

Tonight a book of names arranges us

in alphabetical order. Everyone is a genius.

The the sun rises and curiosity wanes,

wanting to be mutual but not always balanced

at the right angle to the ground.

By noon I've completed my trajectory,

returned to my crowded half-acre

to feel the fatigue of Presidents.

My ears fill with pressure,

my heart with little wings.

I slap a mosquito already injecting

my arm, welling for blood.

The authorities will be here soon

to shred my secret documents.

I hear a sneeze, then another.

It's my neighbor on her front porch.

Bless you, I say, although she can't hear me.

Been in kind of a dark mood for the past week or so. This news about the new science putting the dating of the cave paintings in Europe at 40,000 years of so ago, a time frame which strongly suggests they are not the art of modern man, but of the Neanderthals.

Suggesting our kinds earliest beginnings involved the first and greatest genocide of our history.

we are the apocalypse

art on the wallsof a caveand stencilledhandprintsof the artist,a man who walkedthe earthand made his art40,000 years before today, thehere and nowof my dayas I walk this earth,my earth,trying to leavemy own imprint behind

this man,well, possibly not reallya manin the narrow biologicalsense of things,but still a creatureof artand aspiration,making himand all his clansa brother to me andto all of my more direct kinwho seekthe not-yet knownand impossible to say, thoselike he and mewho aspire to greatermeaning outsideour own restricting skin

this artist,this brother-almost-manand his kind,walked the forestand glades and meadowsfor 300 millennia,tenants of a world still virgin,unsullied by the greedof tribes whose godstold them all was madefor them, that all the lands and seasand all the creaturesof all the landsand seas were but a conveniencecreated by their warrior godsto sate the appetite of theever-hungryhoard

for all those thousands years theymade a homeand they made art in their home,and then they were gone,disappeared barely more than a singlegeneration after our tribes’arrival, the first and greatest genocide, their homeand their art taken, claimedby those who foundtheir own greatest art in warand murder

we the survivors,we who killour brothers nowas we killed our brothers then -what hope does any creature havewhen in the presence of such asus

for we are the apocalypseall others shouldfear

Now here are several more short poems, the last for the week from the anthology, This Same Sky.

The first of the poems is by South Korean poet, Kwang-kyu Kim. It was translated by Brother Anthony. Born in 1941, the poet is a professor of the German language and its literature and has won major Korean literary prizes for his poetry.

The Land of Mists

In the land of mists

always shrouded in mist

nothing ever happens

And if something happens

nothing can be seen

because of the mist

for if you live in mist

you get accustomed to mist

so you don't try to see

you have to hear things

for if you don't hear you can't live

so ears keep on growning

People like rabbits

with ears of white mist

live in the land of mists

The next poem is by Christine M. Krishnasami of India and is untitled. She has experimented with a variety of poetic of forms, publishing books covered in sari cloth through the Writers Workshop of Calcutta.

I love this little piece.

behind a stone three

thousand years old: two

red poppies of today

Here another short piece, this one by Aline Pettersson, translated by Judith Infante. Born in Mexico in 1938, Pettersson writes poetry, short stories, and children's stories and has traveled around the world to read her poetry.

Cuernavaca

There's a deep murmur unravelled,

the air is a song of feather,

a soft babble of grass.

There's a memory of heaven revived,

hum of life and a plea.

There's this need like a baby's, to be loved

Next, from Canada, here is a poem by Peter van Toorn.

Born in Holland in 1944, van Toorn has played tenor sax in a blues band and works as an English teacher in Montreal.

Mountain Tambourine

A crew took part of the big tree away

on my street. A poplar, it was throwing

its ashes, its dirty pillow stuffing,

around too much. So they said. Anyway,

people were tired of it. It was too grey.

It might drop a tired branch and hit something,

a power or phone line. What's still standing

they'll come for tomorrow and chop away.

It doesn't make much poplar talk now. The big

clatter's gone out of it. On the older

side of the street, the last tree stands, tall, big,

full, leafy - a fine shade and rain holder.

It leans to one side at a warm angle,

like Annie, whose door it covered last fall.

My last poem from This Same Sky for this week is by Kevin Perryman.

Perryman was born in England in 1950, but has lived in Germany for more than twenty years.

Improvisation (Eching)

In the drizzle

the tractor pulls

the sea-gulls

in its wake

along a wet, black field

the furrows, pleats

opened by the plough

catch the light like waves.

One by one, the birds sheer

off abruptly,

but return to their place

in the sky, held there

like children's kites.

(The editors note that Eching is a village in southern Germany)

Still thinking about the Neanderthal art thing.

all our niggers are told

as amazing as it isto think that the Neanderthalwere the artists of the caves,that theywere,in fact, art teachersto our later-coming kind,the originators in this dim,dim history of all our so-proudlyclaimed art

and we, in the form of our genetic progenitors,the us of an earlier day,killed them all, the artistssacrificed to the progress of our kind, not enough roomin this paradise for us and them,what we have always said,what we always say, even now,not enough room in this townfor the two us, we say, niggers,don’t let the sun fall on youin this town, be out by sundown all our niggers are told, and the sundown of the artists came and they were a misunderstood blip inhistory, a 300,000 year blipthat doesn’t matter because we are still here and they aren’t, brutes, wesay, hairy, growling, beaststhat were vanished from the earth by the their gruntingfilth and inconvenient habitof wanting the cave we wanted,the tree we wanted, the gamewe wanted - too bad for them…

but there is some justice,as there is always justice, evenif so long delayed, the relationshipbetween the victor and the vanquishedhas not changed through history,the vanquished, sooner or later,die, the males brutalized unto death,and the females raped, maybe evensometimes loved, and offspring are begotand they grow and begat and begatand begat unto our own timeso that we all have in our genetic makeup, a little bit of the vanquished, so that we are alla little bit Neanderthal...

so that we are all a little bit the artist…

so that those first artists,in their fossilized graves, maylaughat the impossibility of full genocide, that they may laughat all the tricks history playson the premature arrogance ofvictors

The last poems from my library this week are from Emerald Ice - Selected Poems 1962-1987 by Diane Wakoski. The book was published in 1996 by Black Sparrow Press.

Wakoski was born in Whittier, California in 1937 and studied at the University of California, Berkeley and graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts. It was there that she first read many of the modernist poets who would influence her writing style. She was associate with Beat poets and cites William Carlos Williams and Allen Ginsberg as important influences.

She is best known for a series of poems collectively known as "The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems"

and received considerable attention in the 1980s for controversial comments linking New Formalism with Reaganism.

She teaches creative writing at Michigan State University in East Lansing.

Inside Out

I walk the purple carpet into your eye
carrying the silver butter server
but a truck rumblers by,
leaving its black tire prints on my foot
and old images the sound of banging sceen doors on hot
afternoons and a fly buzzing over the Kool-Aid spilled on
the sink
flicker, as reflections on the metal surface.

Come in, you said,
inside your paintings, inside the blood factory, inside the
old songs that line your hands, inside
eyes that change like snowflakes every second,
inside spinach leaves holding that one piece of gravel,
inside the whiskers of a cat,
inside your old hat, and most of all inside your mouth where you
grind the pigments with your teeth, painting
with a broken bottle on the floor, and painting
with an ostrich feather on the moon that rolls out of my mouth.

You cannot let walk inside you too long inside
the veins where my small feet touch
bottom.
You must reach inside and pull me
lie a silver bullet
from your arm

c. 1964-65

My Trouble

my trouble
is that I have the spirit of Gertrude Stein
but the personality of Alice B.Toklas;
craggy, grand
stony ideas
but
all I can do
is embroider Picasso's drawings
and bake hashish fudge.
I am poor
and don't have much to say
am usually taken for
somebody's
secretary.

c. 1971

Here's my last thing for the week.

I know when the apocalypse comes

readingThe Book of Revelationsit becomes clearto methat this whole apocalypsething is not aboutus, or at least,not about me -you can pick sidesif you want to -but about an eternaldust-up between He Who Makesthe Heavens Fall and his dark counterpart, HeWho Feeds the Furnace Below, and we, the earthlywe, the universal us - the lionsand bears and dogs and catsand squirrels and wallabiesand snakes that slitheras per their primalinstruction and fish that swimthe oceans blue and treesand petunias and high risingrocks and bugsthat creep from corners atnight and you and me - thatall of us of earthly originjust happen to be stuck in themiddle of the playing fieldlike a dandelion in the middlethe soccer field, or, likethe children in a war zonewhose only excuse is that they live there, right there, wherethe bombs have been scheduledto fall, damn kids, nobody asked them to the war,anyway….

but that’s us, the theory goes,stuck in the middle of someoneelse’s cataclysm, like the kidsin the latest war zone,dumb mortals, created by the players, not to becombatants, not to be witnesses,not to be a cheerleadersfor either side,but only to be the causalitiesthat make the war worth fighting -no fun, after all, in a war werenobody dies…

but, like I said,I am determined that all that's not about me, one of the very few thingsin the universethat are not about me, and, like the people say who want us to believe they aretruly, sincerely, just plain old country folk from Texas, I just don’thave a dog in this fight and those two, the big guy aboveand the scaly guy below (he has a tail,that’s how you can tell the one fromthe other) can just go on right aftereach other and it makes no differenceto me because I know when theapocalypse comes - about 30 minutesafter I breathe my last - and, bad news, with that last breath I will kill all the gods and devils,and, you too, I'm sorry to say(and if there were some way to save youI surely would), cause the endof my days is, as far as I'm concernedthe end of all other days as well

I'm just sorry it all has to endso disapprovingly foryou

It's too damn hot to go through all the usual stuff.

So, simplify, simplify - these are my books. Buy one. Or more. Here.

﻿Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Sony eBookstore and Apple iBookstore for iPad,iPhone, i-everythingelse, as well as Kobo, Copia, Gardner's, Baker & Taylor, and eBookPie